Agriculture Department Lifts Ban On Poultry Exhibitions, Marketing

The state Department of Agriculture has lifted its two-month ban on poultry exhibitions and live bird marketing as long as they meet certain conditions, it was announced yesterday.

The quarantine was imposed on Jan. 20 after a routine inspection discovered a turkey flock in Montgomery County had been exposed to the avian flu virus, a potentially deadly infection that could wipe out millions of chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and other avian species if it were allowed to spread.

Outbreaks of the highly contagious virus in 1983 and 1986 prompted state officials to order the destruction of 16 million birds in 392 flocks, at a cost of more than $100 million to the state poultry industry.

State Secretary of Agriculture Boyd E. Wolff said the latest ban has been successful in controling the spread of the virus.

"While there is continuing evidence of exposure to poultry in Mid-Atlantic states, we believe marketing and exhibitions can resume under appropriate safeguards," Wolff said in a prepared statement.

Under the amended quarantine, poultry over one week old may be transported within the commonwealth under the following conditions:

*the live poultry originates from a flock that is monitored for avian flu, or

*the live poultry is accompanied by an approved health certificate showing the birds originate from the flock that has been blood tested for avian influenza, and

*all trucks, coops, cages, crates or other conveyances used to transport eggs or poultry must be cleaned and disinfected prior to farm pickup.

Special quarantine restrictions still apply to poultry from flocks that are suspected to have been exposed to avian influenza. Flocks that are subject to special quarantine require a permit prior to movement.

State and federal regulators have conducted field visits to nearly 500 Pennsylvania locations since the avian influenza virus was isolated in live birds in three Northeastern states. To date, testing found evidence that birds have been exposed to the virus, but no live virus has been found in any Pennsylvania poultry flocks.

After the virus was discovered in Montgomery County, subsequent tests found a chicken at a live bird market in Philadelphia and a flock of exhibition birds in Chester County had been exposed to the disease.

Surveillance programs also identified the avian flu virus in several bird markets in New York City, and exposure to the disease was discovered in a bird in Dade County, Fla.

Final test results on the Montgomery County turkey flock that spurred the quarantine showed no evidence of infection. But the information did not come soon enough to keep some 100,000 turkeys from going to slaughter.